


Heart's a Mess

by svenjastrange



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluff, Johnlock Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 12:44:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1429039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svenjastrange/pseuds/svenjastrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's heart is a mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart's a Mess

Sherlock Holmes has a number of quirks and spleens and annoying habits. He has, in Johns humble opinion at least, also a few rather adorable little tics and foibles. Whether the detectives mind palace belongs to the first group or the latter, John has, after all those years, after all the cases, after all the life threatening danger and after all the quiet evenings, not as yet been able to decide.

Sometimes Sherlock's retreats to his mind palace present John with blissfully quiet moments of peace, in which no one is shooting at walls, blowing up chemicals in the kitchen or shouting out vicious rants on the dullness and obnoxiousness of days without crimes and murder. Other times, they bring on days and days of brooding silence in which Sherlock does not deign to utter even one word to John or open his eyes to acknowledge his existence at all.

Of one thing, though, John is actually quite sure. He _does_ like the funny, little movements the detectives sometimes makes when especially wrapped up in the work on his mind palace that must be more of a fairy tale like castle of endless proportions, considering the time he spends in it. A tiny flick of his wrist here, a nudge with a palm – It sometimes reminds John of watching a conductor guiding an orchestra or rather of watching some kind of future robotic life form who gets the display of his smart phone projected directly on his retina for no one but him to see.

John likes to watch Sherlock when he “conducts”, looking at the same time completely serious and focused, and, to John, who enjoys that for one the detective is not noticing him watching, just a little silly and endearing and _amazing_. It makes John smile, then wonder why the fuck he is smiling like an idiot and then throw his heterosexuality-threatening doubts about smiling out of the window and just enjoy the view (smiling, of course).

John prides himself with a thorough knowledge of every little movement and gesture. Sherlock is not the only observant person on the planet, after all. He knows the grander gestures are for opening doors to whole thematically organized rooms, the smaller ones retrieve specific information, stored away in drawers, boxes, cupboards and so on… At least he thinks that that’s what the gestures mean after thorough research about memory technique on Wikipedia. Thank god for the internet. Without it, John would not even have the possibility to surprise Sherlock with (more or less) profound knowledge on case-relevant topics as seldom as he does now. The detective would think him a complete idiot – well, _more_ so.

Lately, John has noticed a new gesture in Sherlock's wide repertoire of graceful gesticulation, which is nothing special, it happens every now and then. Old, superfluous data may get deleted but at the rate at which Sherlock takes new information in he is bound to expand from time to time. What first spikes Johns interest is not so much the addition of a room to the palace itself – no, it is the _place_ that Sherlock seems to have chosen to position the new room. What is in it, John doesn’t know. But whenever Sherlock is using his hands to seek it out, he lets his hand sink from his face slowly then lets his palm hover briefly over his _heart_ before pulling it up again.

_Interesting_ , John thinks.

Over the past moths he has tried to gather information as to the contents of this new addition to the mind palace conducting routine, without doing the obvious thing and just ask Sherlock about it. Should, as John suspects, the gesture really mean that Sherlock is keeping certain data in his _heart_ rather than his _head_ the voluntarily and quite deliberately reserved detective would never, ever admit to it.

It figures, John supposes, that Sherlock always seems a little testy, pulling a wry face that seems to display a considerable amount of repulsion, when he works on this particular part of his palace. If John has had doubts about the meaning of this new gesture in the beginning (he is not quite sure - Wikipedia wasn’t helpful on this - how the location of the rooms in the palace and the gestures are connected. In the beginning he thought it might be nothing more than a coincidence that the movement seems to drag something up from the heart region), he feels somewhat verified in his assumptions as soon as he notices the malice with which Sherlock appears to be handling this part of the information at his disposal. It looks like an unwanted but necessary task. And he has been dealing with it increasingly often over the past few weeks. _Even more interesting._

It is one night, one of the quiet, calm nights they so rarely spend together in front of the telly, sharing a pizza and a bottle of wine, that John decides to ask. Somewhere between the third and the fourth rerun episode of an annoying sitcom, Sherlock has sloped off into his own head, leaving John to type on his laptop lazily. He does not have to wait long for the gesture to appear. Now or never.

“What’s that then?“

The detective freezes in mid movement one hand raised in front of his eyes, pushing some invisible drawer of information closed, the other hovering over his chest, the place where his heart must be beating steadily. His eyes snap open, piercing, _dangerous._

It borders on a wonder that he has bothered to react in the first place, that Johns’ voice has somehow managed to actually push through to whatever faraway place Sherlocks mind palace is located. Now he looks a little like a crashed PC – no signal.

To indicate what John means with his question, he mimics Sherlocks gesture. Hand over the heart, then, palm facing upwards, pulling it towards his face and stretching his fingers like in the process of increasing a picture on a smart phone.

“That’s new.” He comments.

“I’m cleaning up.” There is a moment of silence as Sherlock slowly raises his hands and lets them rest on his temples, maybe shutting down his mind palace in order to communicate with John without letting any of the retrieved information slip away.

“Is it dirty then?” John smiles slightly amused. The whole concept of memory techniques by imagining places is something he doesn’t quite get the hang of. It regularly infuriates Sherlock when John says something that shows how little he knows about the workings of the detectives brilliant mind and sometimes John enjoys teasing that nonchalant, bored expression off the detectives face just a little too much. Of course, the suggestive note of “dirty” will be entirely lost on him.

The strong reaction he gets from Sherlock surprises him, however. With an enraged gesture the tall man buries his hand in his thick curls roughly.

“It’s actually all your fault, really – that it’s all so messy.” He complains, a frantic expression on his face.

“What, your heart is?” Sherlocks head snaps up and his eyes fix John with a stare that looks almost horrified for the fraction of a second then gets transcribed with utter indignation.

“What does my heart have to do with anything?”

_Got you there_ , John thinks amused. The testiness in the detectives’ voice has given him away. He is afraid John might have made the connection.

“Well,” John shrugs innocently. “I just noticed that the movement comes from your heart. Like you’ve stored the respective information away in your heart and are pulling it up from there into your head when you need it.”

There is a small silence in which Sherlock stares at him, a carefully put on disdain for the absolute silliness of John words on his face. Then:

“Don’t be ridiculous, John. That would be awfully dull and _sentimental_ of me. The gestures just help me concentrate. They stand in no relation to the actual location of information in my mind palace. I just do it … without noticing.”

John snorts. As if _anything ever_ escapes Sherlock Holmes notice. He knows it himself, how lame this vindication sounds, and John knows he has to tread lightly now. There might be a thick, hard shell of nonchalance and rudeness wrapped around it, but John has managed to peer under there on a small number of occasions and found, to his delight, that the inside is soft and vulnerable – maybe even more so than with people who appear a good deal less detached. John knows that the way Sherlock acts is really who he is – he does not care an iota for most people. Only John is not most people. He is one of the detectives few weak spots. It is a heartwarming, dizzying, magnificent feeling to know that and also horribly frightening.

Instead of saying anything to vex the detective further, John opts for leaning back comfortably in his chair and smiling to himself.

“O.K., sorry.” He says casually. “Just wondering.”

“Well, I can’t expect you to know about these things, do I?” Sherlock snaps and takes a few more moments before he, too, settles back into a more relaxed position, closes his eyes and retreats into his thoughts. It is not half a minute later that he does it again. Quickly and sloppily, as if hoping to manage to avoid Johns noticing. John does notice. What he also notices is that his flat mates usually quite normal coloured ears have turned an alarming shade of red. Obviously he has caught Sherlock out of his comfort zone. A rare challenge to be met indeed and a delicious little victory. He decides to let it go for today.

It is not before they have successfully finished a case about a week later that John feels the urge to bring it up again. As usual after the thrill of a tricky and challenging case, Sherlock is in one of his better moods, having devoured a plate of pasta at Angelos earlier and slumped down on the couch exhaustedly as soon as they entered their flat. He has been in a pleasantly untypical talkative mood all evening. Earlier that night at the restaurant, John has also spied Sherlock doing the heart-to-head-thing again when John had gone to the loo and Sherlock must have believed himself to be unobserved. The sight newly lit his interest.

“So, have you managed to clean up the mess?” he asks, non-committal. No need to specify. He’ll know. Sherlock will know exactly what he is talking about. The loitering pile of limbs on the couch gives a displeased grunt in the intent of expressing his disinterest in talking about this particular subject.

“I’m just asking because it really seemed to bother you the other day. You seemed fine during the case, though. No trouble with, you know, consulting your mental database. You looked as though everything was in perfect order again.” John makes a point of seeming as mildly interested as possible.

On the couch, Sherlocks sits up slowly, grabbing one of the post-case-low-blood-sugar-level-emergency-cookies John always has the presence of mind to put there should they return home from a day-long chase around town without having dinner first, and shoves it into his mouth.

“No, actually.” He mumbles through gritted teeth. “Still too messy. Not the important bits, of course, but everything I’ve stashed away in my hear…” he trails off in mid sentence, looking a bit like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. John feels his lips stretch into a grin, despite himself. Awkward silence - full of grinning and chewing and a little embarrassed sulking on Sherlocks part.

“I suppose I will just have to content myself with the knowledge that _these things_ simply _cannot_ be put into any kind of logical order.” The detective sighs, grudgingly, in sullen defeat and finality and gets up.

_That’s right, retreat in shame! I, John Watson, figured you out!_ He can’t help but feel more than a little smug as he gives the detective an assenting shrug with a Well-what-can-be-done?-expression on his face.

“I have managed to get used to other annoying alterations from my former life since we’ve met. All in All, the disadvantages and the benefits about even out, I suppose. Your army training and the shortness of your legs do come in rather handy from time to time. I shall have to settle for having a bit of a mess in…” he hesitates and throws John a sideways glance through narrowed eyes “…well, in _certain areas_. Good night, John.”

And with a dramatic flick of his dressing gown he is out of the room, leaving John in the silence of the flat.

Yes, Sherlock definitely has his quirks and idiosyncracies and John is still not sure if the mind palace is an altogether lovable or rather an unpleasant one. He is now, however, more sure than ever that he likes the little gestures. In fact, he likes them so much that he is willing to ignore that last insulting part Sherlock uttered. He is too busy with the grinning again ( _Oh, do shut up about whether this should worry you and your masculinity, John_ ) at the thought that he is the reason that Sherlocks thoughts appear to be in disarray. It is his person, his existence, his company, his friendship, his – whatever – it is the reason that Sherlocks heart’s a mess and that knowledge just makes John Watson grin.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the title "Hearts a Mess" by the band Goyte and by Sherlocks eccentric mind palace fumblings in “The Hounds of Baskerville”


End file.
